The United Nations rattled Israel on Wednesday by disclosing that it was examining more than 200 companies doing business with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank but deferred naming any of them until it had completed a review of their activities.

Kim Jong-un has said remarks by "deranged" US President Donald Trump have convinced him he is right to develop weapons for North Korea.
In an unprecedented personal statement, Mr Kim said Mr Trump would "pay dearly" for a UN speech where he threatened to "totally destroy" the North if the US was forced to defend itself.

Iraqi photojournalist Ali Arkady was embedded with who he thought were the good guys — an elite unit of Iraqi soldiers battling Daesh in the name of a united Iraq, strong and free once and for all. But as the battle for Mosul intensified, the Iraqis lost the plot, descending into torture and murder of civilians.

No matter how much you warn visitors to Cuba that they'll be offline during their stay, they often won't believe it until they actually arrive in Havana.
On arrival, they find their iPads and smartphones suddenly only serve for taking photos which, to their dismay, can't be immediately posted to their Instagram or Facebook accounts.

The two young women were what South Korean intelligence calls “lizard’s tails,” expendable assets to be cast off after an operation.
Guided by North Korean agents, they practiced at malls in Kuala Lumpur, then set their sights on the target: Kim Jong-nam, the estranged elder brother of North Korea’s erratic leader, Kim Jong-un.

WARNING: CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE Killings in Chicago have hit a 20-year high as the grim toll for homicides passes 500. The BBC's Ian Pannell and Darren Conway explore a world where gangs and guns rule.

The United Kingdom's historic decision to become the first sovereign country to vote to leave the European Union has reverberated across the world.
Though it's unclear what a British divorce from Europe may look like, the decision may have caused unintended consequences for many Americans. Here's a look at six ways the Brexit may affect the US.

Earlier this month, when Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar and U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter agreed in principle to sign a logistics support agreement (LSA) intended to enhance military ties, many in India wondered if the pact would push the country into an unnecessarily tight embrace with the United States. More importantly, they worried that an…

The journey from Lashio to the rebel village of Wan Hai in eastern Myanmar takes about five hours. The area is off-limits to foreigners so our driver had taped darkened plastic over the windows and we hoped for the best.
…

The mass assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, in the shadow of Germany’s most historic and beautiful cathedral, are destined to become a defining moment in the immigration debate that is tearing Europe apart. After Cologne, the ugly truth can no longer be ignored. The assailants, described by a senior German official, Ralf Jaeger, as being mainly Arab and North…

Saudi Arabia’s execution of the Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr could escalate tensions in the Muslim world even further. In the Shiite theocracy Iran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia, which is ruled by a Sunni monarchy, would face “divine vengeance” for the killing of the outspoken cleric, which was part of a mass…

A gunman firing from a Las Vegas hotel rained a rapid-fire barrage on a huge outdoor concert festival on Sunday night, sending thousands of people fleeing until SWAT units found and killed him. More than 50 victims died, and at least 200 others were wounded, officials said, making it one of the deadliest mass shootings in United States history.

The latest Washington parlour game is trying to determine whether or not special counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating Donald Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russia election meddling inquiry.

Silicon Valley leaders have been locked in a tense standoff with U.S. President Donald Trump over his hard-line stance on immigration, but the tech industry appears to be embracing Mr. Trump’s latest efforts at immigration reform.

The UN chief has warned Donald Trump against abandoning the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying there is "no alternative".
It comes after Mr Trump went against decades of US policy, saying he would back whatever formula led to peace.

France says that it has completed an operation to move thousands of migrants out of the "Jungle" camp in Calais.
Fabienne Buccio, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, said it was "mission accomplished" for the operation, which began on Monday.

If you want to see Sikh fundamentalism in action, look not towards the villages of Punjab but the streets of Britain. On September 11, dozens of men occupied a gurdwara in the British town of Leamington Spa, leading to people being intimidated and locked out. Armed police soon surrounded the temple and later arrested 55 people.
…

The tall, lanky American dressed in all black looked familiar. But Ajith, a 44-year-old Sri Lankan refugee seeking asylum in Hong Kong figured the nervous-looking man with the red-rimmed eyes fidgeting in the darkness outside the United Nations building in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon was a U.S. army dodger.
…

In 1924, a year after founding the Turkish Republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the country’s new leader, abolished the Ottoman Caliphate, which had been the last remaining Sunni Islamic Caliphate since 1517. Having introduced a secular constitution and a Western-style civil and criminal legal code, Atatürk shut down the dervish…

A passenger plane has made an emergency landing in Somalia's capital with a gaping hole in its fuselage.
The hole in the plane's side appeared shortly after take-off from Mogadishu at 10,000ft (3,048m), a colleague of one of the passengers told the BBC.
It is not clear what caused the damage. Officials say two passengers were hurt.

One Syrian woman who joined the stream of migrants to Germany was forced to pay down her husband’s debt to smugglers by making herself available for sex along the way. Another was beaten unconscious by a Hungarian prison guard after refusing his advances.
…